We start things with Cole Camplese, ETS director, who looks back at a year in the cloud. Cole is not being metaphysical or talking about how many frequent flyer miles he has logged, but cloud computing. More specifically, netbooks and how they might influence education. Find out what a netbook is and how you use it by going to his blog.

Mike Halm, who leads the WebLion group, recently posted on the WebLion blog about the presentation himself and Glenn Johnson, project manager of Penn State’s e-Portfolio Initiative, gave at this year’s EDUCAUSE mid-Atlantic conference. They discussed how WebLion helps the Penn State community develop e-portfolios, and you can read about the presentation here. Please note, they are looking for additional departments to work with them on this project.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, has posted an actual educational game that you can check out on the Educational Gaming Commons. He not only posts the game, but offers a hand if you want to incorporate it into your class but are not sure how.

Elizabeth Pyatt is not only an ETS instructional designer but a Unicode guru. Her latest Unicode post on her blog is on how to encode right to left scripts such as Arabic or Hebrew.

Eric Steele, programmer with WebLion, has announced the worm has turned at WebLion! Well, at least the Gloworm. Read about a very cool tool for Web content management here.

Brad Kozlek, senior programmer with ETS, shares with us a great article and video on collaborative editing and social voting.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading!

Cole Camplese, ETS director, has been recording a video that asks a question, then invites you to record a video response. This week, it’s “How Do You Define Identity?”. Please feel free to participate.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, talks this week about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Elizabeth points out is a provision in the act that every three years, the community can petition for exemptions to the no-hacking clause.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, posted in the Educational Gaming Commons about several interesting events:

- One that recently happened including a game showcase and its winner, a medical simulation game that has huge educational possibilities.

- Less an event and more of a request, Brett would like you to read a report on Second Life.

- Finally, Brett tells us about an event that is drivable (and in June, so it won’t snow), a gaming conference at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Yvonne Clark, ETS instructional designer, points us to a very cool multi-cultural learning tool SCOLA. What is it? Go see her post at the Learning Design Community Hub to find out.

Pat Besong, ETS multimedia specialist, conducts a monthly educational multimedia development meeting. If you like to find out what great stuff Penn State people are developing, you can see Pat’s post to the Learning Design Community Hub and view an Adobe Connect recording of the meeting.

That’s it for this week’s BuzzLion – See you in 2009…..January 9, to be exact. Have a great Holiday and New Year.

A community, like busy mall at the Holidays, often has lots of people, but it is really more than that. Cole Camplese, ETS director, talks about what he believes defines a community via video, and offers an opportunity for you to record a video response.

Cole also has a very interesting blog post about what we do at ETS and what it all means.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, last week discussed problems implementing MathML on Explorer 7. She has a followup to this, and it seems she got some help from MathML themselves. Also, she makes an interesting comment about the ongoing Browser Wars and links to her previous blog post on MathML.

Jeff Swain, ETS instructional designer, has the latest in the ANGEL Shorts series posted on the ANGEL Community Hub. Designed to help ANGEL users get the most out of the course management system, this edition focuses on Five Things an Instructor Should Know About Using Media in a Quiz.

Mary Janzen, ETS writer/editor, reminds faculty and staff on the ANGEL Community Hub that ANGEL message boards must be converted to discussion forums before January 21, 2009.

Yvonne Clark, ETS instructional designer, announced on the Penn State Learning Design Community Hub that new documentation for the Adobe Presenter meeting software is online.

A final note: for Teaching and Learning with Technology news, events, and discussion, go to the TLT site and see the right side tabs.

That’s it for this week – thanks for reading!

If you stop by ETS on the second floor of the Rider Building, you see a screen in the hallway with a Twitter feed on it. The feed features Twitter posts by ETS staff, and it is a great way to see what people are doing at ETS. Cole Camplese, ETS director, has found an interesting new tool that takes this concept one step further, and aggregates all the blog feeds, Twitter feeds, etc. in a new and exciting way. If you want to keep up with all the information out there in blogs, etc. but feel overwhelmed, this might be the solution.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, says that games are active, engaging, and keep you focused on them. Except when they are not, and are passive. Come again? Check out Brett’s recent post to the Educational Gaming Commons to learn more about these “passive games.”

Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, has decided to test this application – and found a rather weird benefit.

Some news bits for this week:

Deadline extended for 2009 Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology faculty proposals

The deadline for faculty to submit proposals to present at the Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology has been extended to December 19. This free event will be held Saturday, April 18, 2009 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, University Park. A continental breakfast and lunch will be provided. This year’s theme is “Student Engagement and the Culture of Teaching and Learning.” To reflect this theme, presentations will highlight students’ involvement in the learning process.

Faculty who are using technology to enrich teaching, learning, or research are encouraged to submit a presentation proposal using the online form at http://symposium.tlt.psu.edu/2009proposal/. Topics could involve faculty and students collaborating on a project or an assignment showcasing students using any number of collaborative tools and new learning spaces. Some examples include the use of shared learning resources, the incorporation of digital media, and any best practices that foster student ownership of learning. Sessions can be in a variety of formats, including group presentations, panel discussions, poster presentations, demonstrations, small-group discussions, and other activities. Each session should include some discussion of practical aspects such as the tools used, sources of support, best practices, and how the application of technology can be transferred to other disciplines. For more details and to register, visit http://symposium.tlt.psu.edu/. The Symposium is sponsored by Information Technology Services.

December Adobe Connect Demonstration Sessions
Below are the dates and times for our December Adobe Connect Demonstration sessions. We’ve extended two of the sessions to 1.5 hours to include a demonstration of the breakout rooms which is new to Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro (version 7). We will also demonstrate the primary features of the meeting room and answer questions that you might have. No registration or RSVP necessary.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Monday, December 15, 2008, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

Here is the link to the meeting room: https://breeze.psu.edu/r54559680/. Please come when you like, learn about the new features, different ways to use Adobe Connect, ask questions, stay for a few minutes or for the time; feel free to pass this on to friends and colleagues. Members of the Penn State community can arrange for an on-site demonstration by contacting your ITS Consultant.

If you plan to join our demonstration session through Adobe Connect, please read through the Getting Started information at http://meeting.psu.edu/quickstart and test your connection in advance with our generic test meeting room at https://breeze.psu.edu/testmeetingroom/. If you have any questions or problems entering the test meeting room, help is available by emailing breeze@psu.edu.

PSU Multimedia Group meeting for December

The Penn State Multimedia Group meeting will be held in 202K Rider Building on Friday, December 19th from 10:00-11:00 a.m. Pat Besong of ETS, meeting coordinator, would like to invite anyone that has something you think might be of interest to the group to share. Please let him know by emailing pbz4@psu.edu prior to Dec. 15 so he can get an agenda together for the meeting.

As usual, the meeting will be available via Adobe Connect at http://breeze.psu.edu/multimedia.

So, that is all for BuzzLion for this week. Thanks for reading!

Tim Perry, systems analyst with ETS, recently attended a Webinar on Tegrity, a Web 2.0 product that captures class slides, lectures, etc. And, it doesn’t require classroom-based software and hardware, so it’s cost-effective. Tim reviews the pluses and the minuses of this product in his blog.

Allan Gyorke, manager, educational technologies with ETS, has found another use for Youtube beyond viewing piano-playing cats: learning more about global issues. It is used in one of his graduate classes this way; in fact, Youtube is second only to PowerPoint as the most used educational tool at Penn State.

Cole Camplese, director of ETS, has posted before about Twitter on his blog. He has found another Penn Stater who recently posted on Twitter and he finds it a great way to learn more about Twitter and why it is relevant.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, found a great site that helps kids learn how to count. There is more to learning how to count than any of us probably remember.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, posted in the Learning Design Community Hub about a new Web site that ETS is developing for non-course content for students. Check it out, and help Brett give it a name.

That’s all for this week – thanks for reading.

Dave Stong of ETS is known for his graphic skills, but he is also a lifelong learner. He recently had an interesting academic experience that occurred on a personal level, and it made him reflect on learning style and what it means to him.

Newspapers, even old institutions like the New York Times, face many challenges in a time when there are so many other sources for news. Cole Camplese, ETS director, recently discovered Times People, a social network of sorts within the Times Web site. Cole offers his thoughts on this, including a great way to improve it.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, has found that believe it or not, politics gets in the way of linguistics. She posted recently on her blog on a very encouraging trend she sees regarding Unicode and linguistic identity of Eastern European countries.

Elizabeth also posted in the Learning Design Community Hub about Ray Kurzweil’s recent presentation here. He is the developer of Kurzweil screen reading software for students with many reading disabilities.

There has been some questions about gaming and virtual world courses at Penn State. Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, recently posted in the Educational Gaming Commons about a course in this coming this spring.

That’s it for this week’s BuzzLion. Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

So, live from the Digital Commons Tailgate, lets get started with this week’s BuzzLion.

Brad Kozlek, ETS programming manager, attended the IMS Global Learning Consortium this week, held right here at Penn State University Park. A session he attended raised an interesting question for educational technology – Are learning repositories actually learning spaces?

Cole Camplese, ETS director, also attended the IMS event, and his recent blog post on it gave a more general overview. Cole covers the sessions he attended, and commented on ideas, thoughts, and questions raised during the event.

Jeff Swain, ETS instructional designer, climbs into the time machine and peers into the future, asking “What Will the 21st Century University Look Like?” Jeff looks at the recent report in The Economist on the future of higher education, and offers his thoughts. Plus, welcomes YOUR thoughts.

Brett Bixler channels Edwin Starr and asks “What is it good for”. No, not war, but Second Life. Brett stresses that Second Life is definitely good for education.

Dave Stong, ETS graphics designer, produces a lot of digital content, such as photos, artwork, graphics, etc. In a recent blog post, he discusses HDR, the challenges raised by having to add additional metadata, and a cool way this challenge is met.

That’s all for this week’s BuzzLion. Be sure to come back next week, as BuzzLion is sure to have some stuff on the Digital Commons Tailgate.

Thanks for reading!

For starters, Allan Gyorke, ETS manager, education technologies, is one of several ETS souls haunting this year’s EDUCAUSE 2008 Conference in Orlando. He discusses some of the scary top teaching and learning challenges that spook educational technology experts. That is just the first of his posts from EDUCAUSE; don’t be afraid to read his other posts, which are full of great information.

WHATEVER you do, don’t pick up your iPhone! Because Cole Camplese, ETS director, has found yet another KILLER APP for it – a very cool recording and synching device. Cole finds it quite useful in his day-to-day haunts.

Chris Stubbs, ETS senior programmer, is a serious gamer with scary skills who often looks beyond games into other aspects such as sociology, education (of course), and advertising. Take a look at his recent blog post for some truly hair-raising game advertising that includes a monster on the side of a real building. No, they didn’t hire the Cloverfield monster. See for yourself – if you dare.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, has a frightful time trying to get work done in Second Life’s Penn State space because of all the virtual human entities asking him questions. He notes that there is a sense of presence you bring into SL that just doesn’t exist in other mediums, and this builds some great relationships.

Yvonne Clark, ETS instructional designer, conjured up a whitepaper on e-learning by Adobe, and shares it on the Learning Design Castle of Terror. Er, Learning Design Community Hub. Anyway, it’s a great read, and you can find it here.

Time for some news:

If you want to learn how to use the meeting software Adobe Connect, here is a real treat with no tricks. As posted on the Adobe Connect Community Hub:

Below are the dates and times for our November Adobe Connect Demonstration sessions. We’ve extended one of the sessions to 1.5 hours to include a demonstration of the breakout rooms which is new to Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro (version 7). We will also demonstrate the primary features of the meeting room and answer questions that you might have. No registration or RSVP necessary.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008, from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008, from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Here is the link to the meeting room: https://breeze.psu.edu/r54559680/. Please come when you like, learn about the new features, different ways to use Adobe Connect, ask questions, stay for a few minutes or for the time; feel free to pass this on to friends and colleagues. Members of the Penn State community can arrange for an on-site demonstration by contacting your ITS Consultant (https://myit.vmhost.psu.edu/node/72).

If you plan to join our demonstration session through Adobe Connect, please read through the Getting Started information at http://meeting.psu.edu/quickstart and test your connection in advance with our generic test meeting room at https://breeze.psu.edu/testmeetingroom/.

If you have any questions or problems entering the test meeting room, help is available by emailing breeze@psu.edu.

Okay, that is all for this week’s BuzzLion. Thank God there were no lame Halloween cliches. That would have been scary bad.

Definitely some good news for the Blogs at Penn State pilot, as Cole Camplese, ETS director, points out in his blog. There has been a big jump in the amount of not just blogs, but posts on these blogs as well.

Still on the blog subject, Brad Koslek, senior programmer, recently posted about using tags in blogs as a way to add new features. Read more about it on his superbly-named blog, Edushizzle.

Allan Gyorke, ETS manager of educational technology, wants to talk about globalization. Wait, don’t leave! This isn’t more depressing economy stuff. Allan talks about globalization of learning, and it is quite interesting.

Dave Stong, ETS graphic designer, has his head in the clouds. Tag clouds, that is. He blogs this week about an interesting tag cloud tool and its possible uses for marketing.

Video games – better than life? Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, posted on the Educational Gaming Community Hub about a talk given by a gaming expert that looks at the future of games. You can watch the video here. He makes his points in some surprising ways – give it a watch.

Now for some news:

The International Symposium on Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning

Call for Proposals open until December 8, 2008.

We are pleased to announce the dates and location for the 2009 International Symposium on Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning. The symposium will be held June 17-19, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco.

In addition, the Call for Proposals is now open at the Symposium website, http://www.emergingonlinelearningtechnology.org/.

Program Tracks include:
- Emerging Technologies for Administration, Infrastructure, and Support Services
- Immersive Learning and Virtual Environments
- Inventive Uses of Media and Tools
- Pedagogy and New Learning Environments
- The New Learning Communities

For more information about this symposium, please visit http://www.emergingonlinelearningtechnology.org/.

And speaking of Symposiums:

Registration is now open for the 2009 Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology, along with call for proposals for presentations.

You can register here.

You can submit a proposal to present on the great stuff you are doing in educational technology at Penn State by going here.

That’s all for this week – thanks for reading!

Cole Camplese, director of ETS, recently had a column printed in the prestigious Christian Science Monitor on the rise of participatory social media and it’s affects on society overall. He wrote about his column in his blog, a good move because it started an interesting conversation in the comments section from people beyond Penn State.

Allan Gyorke, manager of educational technologies at ETS, talks about his lifelong learning class he is taking here at Penn State. And then reflects on the myriad of learning opportunities that are currently part of his life.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, has found that too many online archival repositories are, well, not so usable. She takes a look at some, and mitigates her post with a look at some that work.

Jeff Swain, ETS instructional designer, and Mary Janzen, ETS writer/editor, have produced another ANGEL Shorts. This edition is titled “What an Instructor Should Know about Using a Text Editor to Create a Quiz Question Bank” and can be found on the ANGEL Community Hub.

Yvonne Clark, ETS instructional designer, posted to the Adobe Connect Community Hub about an online Adobe Connect Presenter training session that was held last week. If you missed it, no worries, you can view the training here.

A Digital Commons Tailgate on November 7-8 when the football team isn’t even at home? And at the Schuylkill Campus, not here in University Park? Come again? No, you are thinking of the wrong kind of tailgate. This Tailgate is an event that is similar to the Learning Design Summer Camp and is a conference focusing on digital media in education. To learn more, please click here.

Brett Bixler, lead instructional designer with ETS, has posted in the Educational Gaming Community Hub the following announcement:

Dr. Karl Kapp will be joining us from Bloomsburg University to talk about 3D Virtual Worlds and how they do or do not fit into the landscape of online courses. He will be focusing on the pedagogical aspects of these tools and not necessarily the tools themselves, as we are all familiar with and have explored many of these 3D Worlds.

Dr. Kapp’s presentation will be from 10:30 to noon on October 21st at the Hub in Heritage Hall, and I have attached a copy of Dr. Kapp’s bio. Below is an abstract of his presentation.

If you are able to attend please RSVP so we have an idea of how many folks we may have in attendance. Also, if you know of other Instructional Designers that I may have forgot to include on this email please pass along the information. I tried to account for everyone, but I’m sure I missed some folks, especially some at the campuses.

We will try to arrange to have the session recorded and made available for those that cannot attend in person.

Regards.
Rick Shearer, Penn State World Campus

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That is all for this week’s BuzzLion. Thanks for reading and see you next week!